Chief of Texas liquor agency shoots the messenger, denies corruption charges

It’s the holiday season, and joy and peace abound everywhere… if you’re watching the Hallmark Channel.

Early this morning (a Sunday, in case you didn’t notice), the executive director of the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission sent a nastygram to one of his critics, defending the agency’s top cop against corruption charges.

A. Bentley Nettles, Executive Director
Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission

As I reported on Friday, the FBI and Travis County District Attorney’s Office are investigating alleged corruption in the agency, and the TABC itself has already concluded that its chief of enforcement, Victor Kuykendoll, interfered in a criminal investigation to help his friends. Internal investigators also concluded that Chief Kuykendoll lied during the investigation in order to hide his relationship with an organized crime suspect.

In a 6:27 a.m. email, TABC executive director A. Bentley Nettles shrugged off these incidents as nothing more than “managerial misjudgment” by Chief Kuykendoll. Then Mr. Nettles turned his sights on retired TABC lieutenant Darryl Darnell, the man who has spent nearly three years exposing corruption at TABC.

Mr. Nettles alleged that Mr. Darnell had a “bone to pick” with Chief Kuykendoll, and that Mr. Darnell had been fired from TABC and escorted out of the building. In a response sent this afternoon, Mr. Darnell said he retired honorably after 25 years and was never escorted from TABC premises, but instead was the guest of honor at a retirement party hosted by the agency.

If Mr. Darnell is right (and I have no reason to doubt him), it looks like Mr. Nettles has set himself up for a defamation lawsuit. I’ve reprinted the full email exchange below, but a couple of things are worth highlighting:

  • According to Mr. Darnell, the TABC is fighting his open records request for the results of an employee survey, apparently because the results are, in the words of agency lawyers, too “embarrassing.”
  • In his email, Mr. Nettles wrote about refusing to meet with “Sherry and Ed.” He seems to be referring to his predecessor as executive director, Sherry Cook, and Cook’s deputy, Ed Swedberg. Ironically, Mrs. Cook was driven out of the agency in 2017 largely as a result of the corruption that Mr. Darnell exposed that year. In other words, Mr. Nettles arguably owes his job to none other than Darryl Darnell, the man whom he now accuses of having a vendetta against the agency.

In one of his emails to Mr. Nettles, Mr. Darnell suggested that Mr. Nettles had fallen under the malign influence of some lousy TABC employees who should have been purged along with Sherry Cook. Mr. Darnell does not mention any names, but allow me to propose one: Albert Rodriguez, the former commander of the Texas Department of Public Safety’s police academy who now serves as TABC’s director of training.

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FBI investigating Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission, chief liquor cop was promoted while under internal investigation

The Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission’s chief cop, Victor Kuykendoll, was promoted to the position while he was still under investigation for assaulting another agent, and even after the agency concluded that Kuykendoll had interfered with an ongoing criminal investigation of two of his friends. Meanwhile, the FBI and Travis County District Attorney’s Office are investigating Kuykendoll and other TABC officials (more on that below).

Victor Kyukendoll
Chief of Enforcement
TABC

According to a heavily-redacted report released in response to an open records request, an unnamed agent alleged that he was groped by Kuykendoll and Sgt. Jeffery Farmer while attending a colleague’s retirement party in Waco. I received the report from Darryl Darnell, a retired lieutenant and regular thorn-in-the-side of the TABC brass (may God bless him), who noted that the “investigation” appeared to be an attempt to exonerate Kuykendoll.

The assault allegation was “not sustained” by the internal TABC investigator, Lt. Peter Heller, but the report contains findings far more damning than an assault. Consider this excerpt:

According to [TABC Special Investigations Unit] Investigative Reports, on September 13, 2017, Agent Marvin Padgett “saved screen shots showing friends” on the Facebook Page of AC [i.e., “Acting Chief”] Kuykendoll, and one of his “Facebook Friends”, Rami Altrach, was a person on a Terrorist Watch list. Based on this information, SIU opened the investigation into the alleged illegal activity of AC Kuykendoll, [Tom] Noble, and [Wayne] Stovall.

SIU discovered AC Kuykendoll began deleting Facebook pictures related to Rami Alatrach on or before October 27th. In stark contrast to “a couple months after” the October 26th party, that AC Kuykendoll asserted.

Kuykendoll, Noble and Stovall were longtime friends who had worked together in the Waco field office, according to a former TABC agent whom I’ll call “Agent X.” Rami Altrach was a Lebanese national who owned a night club and a car lot in Bell County, according to Agent X, and Agent X was fired by TABC in May after he reported the alleged criminal activity (more on that below).

[UPDATE (12/21/2018 10:50 a.m. ET): I received an email (click here) and record excerpt (click here) from Wayne Stovall indicating that TABC found the charges “unsustained” with respect to any connection between him and Altrach. The email is worth reading, and I’ve requested a full copy of the record.

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FBI releases transcripts from James Comey investigation, refuses to release other records

Fifteen months after I made a Freedeom of Information Act request to the FBI and Office of Special Counsel, and nine months after I filed suit to get the records that I requested, the FBI has finally produced transcripts from OSC’s investigation of FBI Director James Comey.

You may recall that Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles Grassley blew a gasket when he found out the FBI required OSC to sign a non-disclosure agreement that purportedly would have prevented OSC from sharing information with Congress about the investigation. [Note: the OSC in question has nothing to do with Special Counsel Robert Mueller, but is a standalone agency that was investigating allegations that Mr. Comey violated the Hatch Act when he interfered in the 2016 Presidential election].

Like Senator Grassley, I think it’s outrageous that an executive branch agency would try to “contract” with another such agency to hide records from Congress and the public. On September 30, 2017, I served FOIA requests on the FBI and OSC for the non-disclosure agreement (“NDA”) above, as well as all other NDAs that FBI and OSC had executed with other agencies.

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